Credibility Crisis: Wall Street Journal report on Biden ‘slipping’ was smeared by media

Nearly a year before books about Joe Biden‘s cognitive decline made headlines, The Wall Street Journal was viciously attacked for its own bombshell reporting at a time when very few in the legacy media dared to broach the subject. 

In early June 2024, the Journal published a story titled, “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping,” a months-long investigation by reporters Annie Linskey and Siobhan Hughes involving more than 45 sources who were either directly involved or briefed on meetings with Biden, who they said “appears slower now, someone who has both good moments and bad ones.” 

The report, which dropped just weeks before Biden’s disastrous debate performance, was swiftly met with disdain and indignation, not just by the Biden White House, but by its allies in the media as well.  

CREDIBILITY CRISIS: MEDIA EMBRACED BIDEN WHITE HOUSE ‘CHEAP FAKES’ NARRATIVE LEADING UP TO ILL-FATED DEBATE

The Wall Street Journal was viciously attacked by Joe Biden’s media allies for its report on the president showing “signs of slipping” behind the scenes. (John Marshall Mantel/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Chris Kleponis/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Jake Tapper, the CNN anchor who co-authored “Original Sin,” the new Biden bombshell book, framed his coverage of the Journal’s report at the time on the White House’s aggressive response to the “false claims” made by the paper and repeatedly told viewers the report was “mostly based on observations of Republicans.” He had on top Biden surrogate Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., who defended the president and attempted to discredit the reporting as agenda-driven. 

It wasn’t until after the debate (which Tapper notably co-moderated) that he invited the two Wall Street Journal reporters who authored the report to discuss it on his program. 

Several CNN anchors stressed that the Journal’s story heavily relied on Republican criticism of Biden and called out former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who gave the only on-the-record statement, for appearing to flip-flop on Biden’s sharpness in previous comments, something that was later explained as a tactical PR move at the time for McCarthy to bolster cooperation with the Biden White House. 

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CNN’s Jake Tapper invited top Biden surrogate Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware, to attack the credibility of The Wall Street Journal’s reporting on the president’s cognitive decline.

CNN’s Boris Sanchez grilled Hughes over Democratic allegations that her story was “slanted,” a question that would be unfathomable to a journalist covering Donald Trump. 

Oliver Darcy, CNN’s then-media reporter, erupted at the Journal, insisting its reporting “suffers from glaring problems,” lecturing the paper it “owes its readers — and the public — better.”

“It is difficult to imagine that the newspaper, or any outlet, would run a similar story declaring that Trump is ‘slipping’ behind the scenes based on the word of top Democratic figures — despite the fact that the Democratic leadership has demonstrated a much stronger relationship with the truth in recent years than their Republican counterparts,” Darcy wrote. 

“More broadly speaking, The Journal’s piece pointed to a continued problem roiling the news media as it covers the 2024 election. Trump is permitted to fall asleep in court and make nonsensical public statements on a routine basis without any serious questions raised about his mental acuity,” the ex-CNN pundit continued. “Meanwhile, Biden is judged on an entirely different standard.”

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MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough declared the report a “Trump hit piece on Biden” as his co-host spouse Mika Brzezinski ridiculed the Republican sourcing. 

“Why didn’t they just ask Marjorie Taylor Greene to weigh in? And Lauren Boebert?” Brzezinski sarcastically asked. 

MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough declared The Wall Street Journal’s report a “Trump hit piece on Biden.” (Screenshot/MSNBC)

“Deadline: White House” host Nicolle Wallace knocked the “highly-criticized” report that “faced blowback” from Democrats and sounded the alarm on how local TV stations owned by Sinclair Broadcasting Group were covering it, suggesting it was a “right-wing disinformation operation.” 

Wallace’s then-MSNBC colleague Joy Reid raised a similar panic about Sinclair’s coverage of The Journal while swiping the paper’s “dubious” and “highly problematic” report and suggesting it was “conservative propaganda.” She argued that it’s actually Donald Trump, not Biden, who should face scrutiny over mental acuity. 

CNN’s Brian Stelter, then a Vanity Fair correspondent who appeared on Reid’s program as a guest, told the MSNBC host that The Journal’s report “had a lot of flaws” and appeared to agree with Reid’s assertion that it’s Trump who should be more scrutinized, knocking how the media “obsesses” over Biden’s age. 

The New York Times elevated the criticism of CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert, who summarized The Journal’s reporting as “old news.” Liberal writer Brian Beutler complained on X the piece was an “egregious hit job.”

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Jennifer Rubin, at the time a prominent columnist for The Washington Post, slammed the “shoddy front-page Wall Street Journal article,” saying it was “essentially the promotion of a right-wing meme.”

“The Journal’s faceplant should lead to a much larger discussion: to what extent and in what way age matters to the performance of the chief executive. Frankly, it has nothing to do with the sort of factors Biden’s critics obsess over (e.g., verbal slips, how fast he moves),” Rubin told readers. “Does he misspeak? Does he physically stumble? Focusing on such relatively superficial subjects has come to define political journalism.”

“A president’s gait, verbal tics and minor recall errors have virtually nothing to do with the job of being president. The White House occupant is not a “Jeopardy!” contestant, a stand-up comic, a talk-show host or guest; the president is the head of the executive branch and commander in chief,” she later wrote. 

Jennifer Rubin, formerly of The Washington Post, slammed The Wall Street Journal’s “shoddy front-page” “faceplant” she said was “essentially the promotion of a right-wing meme.” (William B. Plowman/NBC/NBC Newswire/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

Left-wing advocacy group Media Matters For America scoffed at the Wall Street Journal’s “comically weak” report.

“Republicans and their right-wing media propagandists have spent the last four years smearing President Joe Biden as mentally infirm. That argument keeps exploding in their faces when Biden appears before a national audience in debates and speeches, but the president’s mental acuity is a frequent subject of media attention, and polls show voters are concerned about Biden’s age,” Media Matters wrote. “The Journal is perhaps the most credulous of the major newspapers when it comes to the GOP’s campaign to convince the public that Biden’s stammer and occasional verbal stumbles indicate he has dementia.” 

The journalism non-profit Poynter Institute attempted to tackle the question of whether the Journal’s report was “fair or foul.” 

“Is it a fairly reported story on a pertinent topic? Or is it a pointed piece based pretty much on quotes and opinions from those who don’t want to see Biden elected to a second term? I’d go with the latter — considering the money quote is from McCarthy, another key anecdote was reported by current Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, and other tales suggesting Biden’s decline are flimsy, at best,” Poynter Institute’s Tom Jones ruled.

NYT, MSNBC, PBS JOURNALISTS PRESSED ON HOW THEY COVERED BIDEN’S AGE: WE PROBABLY NEED TO DO ‘SOUL-SEARCHING’

Little did the media know that The Wall Street Journal only scratched the surface of Biden’s cognitive decline, which was on full display at the presidential debate and led to his dramatic ousting from the 2024 race. The Journal stood by its report since it was published and its editor-in-chief Emma Tucker said she felt “very much” vindicated following the debate. 

“The reporters took a lot of grief for covering a story that needed to be covered and that no other main stream publishers were willing to touch. I am very proud of them,” Tucker told Semafor. 

Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance led to his removal from the presidential race just weeks after The Wall Street Journal published its bombshell report. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

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Now Democrats and members of the media have been speaking more candidly about Biden since he left office. Some in the media are even singing the praises of the two Wall Street Journal reporters who were once the target of vitriol from their peers in the press. 

“I remember when people worked hard to try to discredit these excellent reporters’ groundbreaking reporting on Biden’s decline. And now everyone agrees they were right all along,” CBS News reporter Jan Crawford wrote on X. “Kudos to [Annie Linskey] [Siobhane Hughes] and the @WSJ for never wavering.”

Crawford continued, “And shame on the @PulitzerPrizes for failing to properly honor the most courageous and deeply sourced original reporting of the past year (or years).”

“I said it last year before the election, and I’ll say it again, the journalism you did was vital, and the smear campaign by Democrats against you two is disgraceful,” Tapper told The Journal reporters on his CNN program earlier this month.

“You’re heroic,” Tapper told them. 

Fox News’ Brian Flood and David Rutz contributed to this report.